Page:Castelvines y Monteses Translated.pdf/16

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INTRODUCTION.

MR. J. O. Halliwell kindly lent to me some time since a copy of "Romeo and Juliet, a Comedy written by that celebrated Dramatic Poet, Lopez de Vega, contemporary with Shakespeare, and built upon the same story on which that greatest Dramatic Poet of the English Nation has founded his well known Tragedy: London, printed for William Griffin, at Garrick's Head in Catherine Street, Strand; 1770" [Price 1s.]. 8vo. Pp. 30.

Knowing something of Lope de Vega's "Castelvines y Monteses," I was interested to learn how the anonymous translator had treated his original; upon referring to the text I found that, in addition to the alteration of the name of the play, the dramatis personæ had all been rechristened, so that Castelvines were printed Capulets, and Monteses, Montagues, the Roselo Montes of Lope de Vega, Romeo Capulet, and Julia Castelvin Juliet Montague; further examination resulted in the discovery that the